‘Key state institutions telling lawmakers to support PTI’s candidate for Senate chairman,’ alleges PML-N

With Senate chairman vote approaching, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has brought to the fore a senator who claims to have received calls to support the ruling party’s candidate for the slot, Sadiq Sanjrani.

Senator Hafiz Abdul Karim, while talking to media on Thursday, said that he received multiple telephone calls from officials of key state institutions to cast his vote in favour of Sanjrani in the election to be held through secret ballot on Friday.

He was accompanied by former prime minister (PM) Shahid Khaqan Abbas, Marriyum Aurangzeb and Ahsan Iqbal.

“I received the first call on March 6 but I could not attend it. Later, calls were also made on March 7 and March 9. I attended the last call when I was told to support the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate,” he claimed.

The PML-N senator said that he had been nominated in a four-year-old case to pressurise him, adding that he would continue to support Nawaz Sharif come what may.

The presser came shortly after PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said that her party’s senators were being contacted and told to not support opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), in the forthcoming elections for chairman and deputy chairman of the upper house of the parliament.